L'Aimant - Chap 31 (M)
by GiuliettaC
Summary: (M-rated version of Chapter 31 of "L'Aimant". For the T-rated version of this chapter - and indeed for all other chapters of this fic - go to the story entitled, simply, "L'Aimant".) A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense. Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.


**L'Aimant – Chapter 31 (M)**

**Summary:**

(M-rated version of Chapter 31 of "L'Aimant")

A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.

Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.

_Chapter 31: _Foyle and Sam are reunited, and warm up the house.

**Disclaimer:**

The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

For the **T-rated version of this chapter**, (and indeed for all other chapters of this fic), go to the story entitled, simply, "**L'Aimant**".

…

The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a between-the-wars political movement led by Sir Oswald Mosley. Supporters latterly modelled themselves on Hitler's Nazis. They adopted the Nazi salute, and dressed in the trademark black shirts from which they acquired their nickname.

...

_It's That Man Again_ (known as _ITMA_ [it-mah] for short) was a popular comedy programme broadcast on BBC radio during the WWII years, and credited with sustaining morale on the British Home Front. The title was taken directly from a headline published in the Daily Express in the lead-up to WWII, which referred to Hitler, and the relentless frequency with which his name figured in the news. For the purpose of the radio show, however, it applied to the programme's star, popular comedian Tommy Handley. A major character in the show was a Cockney charlady, Mrs Mopp, whose cheery catchphrase "Can I do you now, Sir?" always pulled in laughs from the audience.

…

Thanks to _dancesabove_ as usual for her beta-work and encouragement on this.

* * *

**_Previously, in "L'Aimant"_**

_"If it's any consolation, the man responsible is no longer in a position to do more damage."_

_"Something, then, at least." Anne gazed across the lawn, a great expanse of green, broken up now and then by buttercup-yellow flowers fringed with green ruffs. "Now may I plead with you, Mr Foyle?"_

_Foyle raise an eyebrow in query._

_"Whatever you find out this time, I would like the truth from you directly."_

_Foyle examined his shoes. "You have my word of honour, Lady Messinger."_

_"Thank you. Do you like my garden?"_

_"Very much. What are these yellow flowers?"_

_"_Eranthis hyemalis_, Mr Foyle. A brilliant midwinter contrast to the modest snowdrop. They open out in winter sunshine, give back the light that they consume, then close again at dusk. People's lives would do well to emulate them, don't you think?"_

_"Indeed I do, Lady Anne." _

_"May I offer you refreshment before you go? Tea? A sandwich, perhaps? I feel sure your driver has been well-fed while we've talked and walked."_

_"I, um, very kind… but I haven't much of an appetite at the moment." Foyle gazed into the distance, thinking there were days when his job was almost unbearably painful._

_"Quite so. Nor I." She offered him a faint, sad smile, and then her hand. "I thank you for your visit, Mr Foyle. You are always welcome here."_

* * *

**Chapter 31**

**Monday afternoon, 15****th**** January, 1945**

Installed once again in the rear seat of the Lanchester, Foyle discovered that his appetite for paperwork was no sharper than his hunger for food.

_Fortunes of war._ Leaving aside the unexplained circumstances of Sir Giles' death, it had been doubly hard to break the truth of William's death to Lady Messinger, although Foyle had suspected all along that she would regard the truth, brutal though it was, still preferable to the fabrication of a suicide.

His mind wandered to his own, quite different, mode of service in The Great War—desperate months spent cheek-by-jowl with other brave men in the squalor of the trenches. One of those had been a Private Abrams—another Jew who'd served his country in a less exalted role than had Sir Giles, but nevertheless with the same fierce loyalty and dedication. In those awful months he had learned from Sol Abrams smatterings of the Jewish faith and plenty more about the cultural customs practised by the Abrams family. Sol spoke often of his home, and the warmth of the community in the East End of London where his family lived.

Perhaps, mused Foyle, Sol's loyalty had been unmerited, considering the rise of British Fascism in the decade following the war. It had been with some relief, therefore, and no small pride in the bloody-minded fairness of his countrymen, that Foyle had learned of Oswald Mosley and his black-shirted cohorts being sent packing out of Cable Street— the fury of the ordinary decent Londoner, well-directed, knew no bounds. He had been somewhat less proud of the voices of authority that had sent men of the Metropolitan Police to clear the way for Mosley. _That would never happen now._

He gazed mournfully out of the window of the Lanchester. It struck him in that moment how desperately he missed Sam's cheerful chatter, and he was suddenly intrigued to discover whether Anselm's skills actually stretched to conversation.

"They, um, treat you well in the kitchen?" he ventured at the back of Anselm's head.

John lifted his steely eyes to the mirror. "Yes, Sir. Tea and a beef sandwich. Not half bad."

Foyle snorted amiably. He was in the mood to crack a tiny joke, though the allusion would be lost on Anselm, who had not been party to his line of questioning at the hotel in Staines:

"No horseradish with it?"

He observed Anselm's nose wrinkle through the rear-view mirror. "No, Sir. Can't abide the stuff. The lady did offer. Even tried to twist my arm—told me Sir Giles was mad on horseradish and wouldn't eat his beef without it. But me? Nah. Not my thing."

"Ah well. Takes all sorts." Foyle settled back then to admire the scenery, and counted the minutes till he'd be home again with Sam.

* * *

"Join us for breakfast tomorrow, won't you, John?" Foyle made the invitation as his driver handed him his case on the steps outside 31 Steep Lane.

"'F it's all the same to you, Sir, I'm an early riser. Like to take a run along the seafront. Then I'll probably be in a café for a spot of breakfast before eight."

"Suit yourself." Foyle nodded affably. "See you here then, at nine-thirty for the off."

"Sir."

Foyle watched as the young man folded his long limbs back into the driver's seat and steered the Lanchester confidently down the hill and out of sight. Anselm never seemed to look back, but Foyle knew from experience that he kept one eye cocked in the rear-view mirror.

Turning towards his own front door at last, he reached to slot his key into the lock. But before he could complete the action, the door swung inwards on its hinges.

There on the threshold, in a frill-shouldered patterned pinny, blouse-sleeves rolled up to the elbows and her hair wrapped in a scarf, stood Sam—a perfect picture of cheerful domestic drudgery. She was brandishing an ostrich-feather duster, and her nose was liberally besmudged with dirt.

"Christopher!" Sam's cheeks glowed pink with pleasure. "I wasn't expecting you till this evening, but then I heard the car pull up outside. Ah, Darling! It's so wonderful to see you." She threw her arms around him, dragging him indoors. "Oh, Love, I've missed you so!"

Christopher's eyes crinkled into an adoring smile, and in that instant all the stresses of his weekend seemed to fade into another world. Moreover, this housewifely welcome was so warm, he sensed that there was good fun to be had from it. Foyle tucked his chin into his neck and gazed into Sam's smiling, smut-flecked face.

"Mrs Mopp today, I gather?" He quirked a smile and craned his neck around her head, peering exaggeratedly down the hallway. "Not interrupting anything major, I hope? Chimney-sweeping? Mucking out the coal-shed?"

"Just a bit of silly old spring-cleaning. Nothing much." Sam's utter contentment with her armful of husband expressed itself through lips pressed close against his cheek. "You smell wonderful. Edibly good," she hummed, nipping at the day's growth of bristles round his chin.

Foyle was amused to see the ostrich feather duster in her hand, and fell suddenly prey to a mischievous urge to ruffle Sam's personal plumage. It would have been so easy to respond to her affectionate overture in kind, but instead he forced a frown and addressed her in a clipped, efficient tone. "Too early for spring cleaning, surely, Sam? And, um, shouldn't you be at the station? Milner couldn't find you anything to do?"

Sam leaned back and examined him suspiciously from under narrowed lids. This could only be a tease, and when it came to teasing, Sam had served a long apprenticeship beside her husband. She could've taken him with his own tactics like a shot, but for now, bald shock-tactics seemed the order of the day. She stooped to place the feather-duster on the floor, then, straightening, held up the backs of both her hands before his face, inviting his inspection. For all the world, they looked as if she had been in a fight: three fingernails on her left hand were broken, and two knuckles on her right were badly skinned.

It had the right effect. Concern from Christopher was instantaneous. A hand shot up to grasp her fingers in his own. Now the upward inflection of his voice betrayed the merest touch of frost. "How did this happen?"

"Well, since you ask," she went on, taking special care to keep the arch note from her tone, "I was at the station yard for hours yesterday. Brookie rang to say there was a puddle under the front bumper of the Wolseley, so Yours Truly had to find _and_ fit a brand new radiator. That took most of Sunday. _Today_, Paul said it would be all right if I took a few hours off in lieu."

"You couldn't take it to a garage?" Foyle's brows knit and his thumb caressed the delicate fan of bones below her injured knuckles.

"It wasn't fit to drive, and we rang several places to see if they would tow it in, but only one was open on a Sunday, and he said he was busy until Wednesday." She gave a shrug and met his eyes proudly. "So I did the work myself."

When she tugged lightly, he released her hand, watching with a warm expression as she flipped it over to reassess the damage.

"I certainly shan't be winning any prizes for my manicure this week." She heaved a sigh of mock affliction. "But at least my _old _boss Mrs Bradley would be proud of me. Even if my _current_ boss is more concerned with finding fault than crediting my achievements." A defiant look accompanied her last remark.

Foyle drank her in. She was a tonic, and her ham performance cranked up his enjoyment of her even further. And when she crowned her last remark with a pert, provocative, "So you can put _tha_t in your pipe and smoke it," his eyes acquired a definite wolfish glint.

"It isn't true; I'm uncommonly proud of you," he cajoled, reaching to fold her back into his arms.

Sam moved back smoothly to evade him, and retain her small advantage. But as she turned and set off down the hall, Foyle recognised an invitation to pursue her in the soft sway of her hips.

His lip quirked then, and by the time he'd shrugged off his overcoat he was smiling broadly to himself. "That pipe... um... how'd you like to smoke it _for_ me?"

Quick as a flash he had his tantalising answer, in the form of a remark cast back over her shoulder: "_Can I do you now, Sir?_"

Even as her plummy vowels played havoc with the cheery Cockney catchphrase, Christopher's hand crept up reflexively to finger the knot of his tie.

The smile that warmed his lips spread downwards. In the last few days, his intellect may well have been immersed in his investigations, but his body had distinctly felt the lack of Sam. In all their time together, he and Sam had not yet managed four consecutive days' abstinence. His appetites and rhythms had grown all too adjusted to the sweet fringe-benefits of domesticity. Now, to his amusement and delight, he was on a promise from Samantha playing housewife—and if a precious ornament or two got polished in the course of these perceived domestic duties, who was he to pass up on the invitation?

Pausing only to remove his hat and pluck the feather duster from the floor, he pivoted into Samantha's wake, and rapidly caught up to her.

The invitation, _'Can I do you now, Sir?' _re-echoed in his brain.

Now at Sam's back, Foyle leant and brought his lips to ghost against her ear. His words emerged in a warm sensual hum: "Certainly you may. From top... to bottom."

The game was on. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Sir."

His arm slid round Sam's waist, and with a flourish of his other hand, the ostrich feather duster reappeared in front of her.

"I once read in a book," he told her donnishly, "that you should always begin dusting on the _upper _floor. Then, ah, you work your way... downstairs." With that, his lips descended to push aside the open collar of her blouse and plant kisses on the freckles on her neck.

Sam closed her eyes and let a shiver take her. "Christopher Foyle, the dangerous books you read!"

He raised one eyebrow. "_Easy and Delightful Tips for Housewives, 1936_?"

* * *

Upstairs, their clothes had disappeared in record time, and Christopher now lay supported on his elbows, his hips within the cradle of her thighs. He traced his lips along the shallow arches of her eyebrows, then walked them down her temple, pausing long enough for his tongue to make a tender exploration of the small, translucent shell that was her ear.

"I missed you so," she told him fondly, and eased him over to recline on his back, propping herself on her left elbow. "This much," she raised her lips to kiss his temple. "And this," she leant across to taste his eyelids, "and this," the bridge of his nose, "and these" his lips—she lingered there for a gloriously sensual minute. "And while we're on the subject, these." She nipped his left ear lightly, then settled in to nibble on his right.

After a few seconds his moans of appreciation became so self-indulgent as she stroked his dark, flat nipple with her hand, that Sam decided he was having too much fun, and bit him quite hard on the earlobe.

"Yow-ow! Sam?!"

In the next instant she was pinned beneath him, giggling nervously, and submitting to a gentle but renewed assault along his previous preferred routes round her features. She gave a playful lurch to see if he would be dislodged, but found herself immobilised, one hand palm-up above her head, the other arm pinned to the mattress at her biceps.

"So you missed me, did you, Mrs Mopp?" It was never meant to be a question, but, starved of conversation as she'd been in recent days, Sam overcame the shivers his attentions were bestowing, and took his query as an invitation to converse.

"Oh, terribly. The house felt huge without you. But then I made a lovely list of things to do. I'll show you in the morning, shall I? Show you my all my plans for when I finish work?"

"Sounds... nice." The tone was warm, indulgent, but utterly distracted. Sam knew that Christopher was barely listening.

The attentions of his lips had moved into the dip between her collar bones, and the fingers of one hand now gathered round the creamy plumpness of her breast. She tasted vaguely of wax polish with a hint of Vim and undertones of Brasso, and in his dreamlike state, he fancied it the perfume of the angels. He latched now with wandering lips onto the small, hard bud that was her nipple, his hand snaking down her arm and sliding into her upturned palm, lacing his sturdier fingers through her delicate ones in just as intimate a joining as any sweet connection that their bodies could achieve.

"Em... Christopher?" Although his every nip and kiss and tug at her was sapping her ability to focus, still she craved some small acknowledgment of how well and bravely she'd survived his absence.

"_Christopher!_"

"Mmm-hmm?"

"What did I just tell you. Did you hear?" she pressed him gently, tucking in her chin and planting one soft kiss atop his fuzzy pate.

She'd lost him to his fascinated quest, and arched and closed her eyes and gasped a little, yielding to the soft seduction of his single-minded pilgrimage. For her husband's part, all he could articulate was "Mmm... youmizzedme..." And every word of that was slurred between the ministrations of his lips.

Dragging apart her passion-heavied lids with no small effort, Sam shared a look of dreamy resignation with the ceiling. She could've left things there, but as so often is the case in lovers' games, the tenderest pleasures derive from teasing. Mustering her lust-fogged faculties she contrived, between her hitching breaths, to lay an open trap: "And then... oh! ah!... Field Mar...ah!...shal Montgomery came to tea."

Christopher's response to this amounted to an unengaged "Mmmnice."

His brain was too engaged with other matters.

By now his lust-fuelled writhing and Sam's answering undulations had brought him nudging at her entrance. Foyle's eyes scrunched closed in momentary concentration. It was a difficult manoeuvre to complete without the aid of hands, but by some fortune he had come to rest at a propitious angle, and Sam, as ever in their intimate encounters, exuded warm, wet welcome fit to ease his entry. He pushed—in mellow, optimistic blindness—and by some gentle stroke of providence, slid home.

Sam arched, and cried out with a candid, keening gasp. The game was up. There would be no more words from her. Those azure eyes that burned into her now were hooded with affective rapture; the lips wore such a languid taint of pleasure that Sam had neither care nor memory for any other level of existence but the present.

And what a present—what a gift—he promised. Foyle's hands stayed laced with Sam's, but now moved level with her ears. He took a moment then to trail light kisses down her cheeks and kiss her deeply, circling and tasting at her tongue with his.

As sure as Sam had lost her voice, he found his in that moment. Parting his mouth only slightly from hers, he spoke in a low, harsh whisper.

"Want—need to show you how much I missed _you_," he breathed, and pushed against their joined hands, raising up his body just enough to gain purchase for a single thrust. Sam mewled anew and clenched her inner muscles, gripping round his length inside her, as if to take him prisoner there.

His eyes flew open with astonished pleasure, so tightly was she locked around him. Withdrawing then against the gratifying pressure of her inner walls, he plunged back once again and was rewarded with the same relentless tightness. Sam told him with her body that she'd fight before she let him part from her again.

A pounding started in his ears as his arousal mounted, rising higher than the lazy foreplay they had earlier enjoyed. And Sam's enraptured moans rose with him. With each thrust, she cried out, arched and pushed her hips to meet his ingress, gripping at his rhythm to hinder his departure. He was being wrung dry with a force that left him wide-eyed, gasping and in serious doubt of his command of the encounter.

Locked in the frantic pace of passion, they vied now with each other to erase the uneasy memory of recent separation, and even as they did so, it became clear that, at this pace, their lovemaking would not last beyond a minute or so more. It was of no importance, for the urgency of completion owned them, even as they duelled for the last raw gasp and drop and whimper of each other, there was a tremble building in Samantha's limbs that grew to bucking paroxysms beneath him and extracted the last ounce of sensual fury from his loins. He exploded in her then with a low howl of pure delirium that tore her climax from her in the self-same instant.

Collapsed upon her, heavy and fulfilled, Foyle barely heard the music of Sam's hitching cries of ecstasy before he fell asleep.

* * *

He woke from his post-coital stupor on his back, with Sam's head lolling insensibly on his shoulder. As his mind-fog cleared, he was unsurprised to find his sleuth's brain sifting through the shards of information he'd unconsciously assimilated in the throes of their encounter. Now, as he stroked her curls in proud contentment, Sam's comments played back in his mind. Eventually she stirred, and he smiled across at her through eyes crimped in adoration.

"So, Sweetheart," he murmured, "I gather you've made a list, and, um, Monty dropped in for a cuppa?"

Sam blinked blearily up at him, still semi-conscious in the afterglow. "Mmwha?"

"You told me. Earlier. You've been entertaining generals. It's what's known in the force as 'polishing the Brass'." He settled back against the headboard and rested his eyes, a teasing smile playing across his lips. "Would that account for the, um, frilly pinny and the smell of metal polish from your beautifully-fashioned person?"

"Very funny, Holmes." Sam yawned, then, giving him a sneaky sidelong glance, ran a sharpish fingernail across his nipple in retaliation—and was rewarded with an equally sharpish intake of breath.

She giggled in delight. "Can we be serious for a moment?"

"Not setting much of an example, are you?" he remarked in an aggrieved tone, still rubbing at his painful nipple.

Sam ignored him, and pulled herself up to his level against the headboard. "It's all very well. You've been gone since Thursday, you come home, we fall on one another—which is natural—but _now_, I'd like to know what's going on, if you don't mind."

Foyle sighed, then gathered her against him. "Fair enough, Mrs Foyle." Feeling her snuggle against him, he continued, "Well I can tell you this: it's a suspicious death that looks like murder; it's a high-ranking official; and I haven't one shadow of a clue who did it. Yet."

"So how long will they expect you to go on? Surely they can't keep you on the case indefinitely?"

"Still hard to say. I'll have to make an interim report on Friday, then after that, the decision will lie with my superior."

Sam frowned impatiently. "In that case, I had better make the most of you. It looks as if it could be quite a while before I have you back, my darling."

"Well," he cuddled her, planting a kiss into her hair, "nothing I'd like better than to tie this up."

As he looked tenderly down at Sam, her face assumed a very serious expression. She was having an idea—he could feel it coming, just as surely as he knew that he was going to love it, as he always had to love the things that came from Sam.

"In that case," she informed him practically, "all you can do is keep on going over the little that you _do_ know, until you realise you know a lot more than you _think_ you do."

Foyle cocked an eyebrow, rolling an eye as he followed that one through. "Um. Thank you for that insight, Sam. I'll, ah, certainly bear that in mind. Meantime, how d'you fancy... "

"Getting some sleep?" she snuggled in more closely.

"My thoughts, exactly."

"Aren't we getting up for dinner?"

A half-smile. "Sandwich in bed later?"

"Sounds just the ticket."

Foyle held Samantha in his arms, and as they settled down to doze, images and concepts from the last few days ebbed and flowed in his subconscious: _asphyxia; beef sandwich; cardiac arrest; Eranthis hyemalis; wouldn't eat his beef without; Nah. Not my thing..._

And then he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**Tuesday morning, 16****th**** January, 1945**

"The, um, replacement radiator for the Wolseley. Where did you manage to find one?"

Sam swallowed down a mouthful of toast. "Taylor's Garage. 'Bout six miles up the Bexhill Road. The man was an absolute old love—although he hadn't got the time to do the job himself, he let me buy the part. _And_ he lent me a small trailer to bring it back in."

"A trailer?"

"Mmm. For the bike. I cyc"—she finished in a small voice—"cycled."

Foyle turned to look out of the kitchen window, pointing a finger as if to emphasise his certainty. "But your bike is out of action in the..."

"Shed. Yes. Well, I borrowed one, you see. From work. It's not ideal. I'd rather have my own, but..." Suddenly, Sam wasn't going to have it any more.

She fixed him with her toughest stare. "Look here, Christopher. I need to get my bike repaired. Have you got my nuts?"

Foyle's face was the picture of wide-eyed innocence as he bent over his toast. "Do I look like a squirrel?"

"Oh, very funny. Wheel nuts. And I _know_ you've got them."

"Nnnn—er—well... Can't recall where I put them. Whydontyou... um... let me find 'em for you... next week?"

There was a loud rap-rap at the front door, and Foyle rose abruptly, smoothing down his waistcoat in a sudden, telling gesture. "Must just get the door. John Anselm's here to pick me..."

He had reckoned without the agility of youth, as Sam bolted from her seat with sprinter's speed and pinned him to the kitchen doorframe, hands snaking round and down him in a frisking motion, invading one pocket after another. Finally they came to rest upon his silver pocket watch, and their eyes met. Foyle's were sheepish, Sam's triumphant. In the next moment Sam's hand closed round her prize: the wheel nuts, slung together on a key-clip, hanging from the watch-chain like a fob.

"Ah-hah! Miserable fibber, Christopher. Hand them over this minute, unless you want your driver to know how girlish and undignified you sound when tickled to within an inch of your life."

******** TBC ********

**Author's End-notes:**

A quick word on behalf of my friend **_nocturnefaure (Fauré!)_**, who is working hard for Foyle's happiness in the **M**-rated section of the site. Alas, the automatic filters veil her work. But she appreciates readers, and accepts anonymous reviews from shy visitors ;o)

...

_"He had been somewhat less proud of the voices of authority that had sent men of the Metropolitan Police to clear the way for Mosley. That would never happen now."_

More on Mosley's Blackshirts.

In the years running up to World War II, Mosley's movement became an increasing irritation in Britain, culminating in the Cable Street riots of 1936, when his attempt to stage a march through the East End of London was thwarted by ordinary people mobilising against the BUF and their police escort. There was bloodshed, and the march was duly diverted away from what was a prominently Jewish area.

In the aftermath of Cable Street, political extremist movements were suppressed under the Public Order Act of 1936, and the BUF was finally proscribed in 1940.

Mosley and nearly 800 of his supporters were interned during the war—Mosley in the grounds of Holloway Prison. They let Mosley out at the end of '43 because of his phlebitis—an annoying and inflammatory condition of the veins. In this respect, the disease reflected the man. Mosley spent the rest of the war under house arrest.

In Foyle's War canon—_"The White Feather" _(S1E2)—we are given a taste of Mosley's style, if not exactly his content, in the charismatic persona of traitor Guy Spencer. Memorably played by Mr Charles Dance at his cobra-like best, Spencer even mesmerises a disenchanted Milner for a while.

P.G. Wodehouse's popular Jeeves novels satirise the BUF in the character of amateur dictator Roderick Spode, leader of the 'Blackshorts'. (There are plenty of YouTube clips to enjoy of John Turner spitting venom and oozing slime in the role. But never mind the fascism—google 'jeeves spode eulalie' to uncover the _really _dark side of Roderick Spode ;o)

...

More soon.

**GiuC**


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